August 3, 2022 | Volume IV, Issue 15

Althoff Named Chair and Health Care Leader of Psychiatry

On August 1, 2022, Dean Richard L. Page, M.D., and Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs Jason Sanders, M.D., announced that Robert Althoff, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry, had been appointed chair and Health Care Service Leader for of the Department of Psychiatry, effective immediately. Dr. Althoff had served as interim chair of the department since October 1, 2021, succeeding Robert Pierattini, M.D.

“We wish to thank all the members of the search committee, chaired skillfully by Dr. Pamela Gibson and Dr. Gregory Holmes, for conducting a national search that saw four outstanding finalists invited to our campus for interviews and town halls,” Page and Sanders said in a joint statement to the Larner community. “After this extensive search process, it became clear that Dr. Althoff is the leader to advance this important department across all missions,” they added.

Dr. Althoff has been a member of the UVM faculty and UVM Health Network Medical Group since 2006, and since 2017 has served as medical director for psychiatry at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (CVPH), and division chief, Adirondack Division, in the Department of Psychiatry. In addition to his work at CVPH, he has been involved in clinical care across the UVM Health Network. He is a recognized national leader in child and adolescent psychiatry.

Read more about Dr. Althoff’s appointment.

The Evolution of UVM’s Emergency Department

Emergency medicine is relatively new; it began to take shape in the mid- to late-1960s, when the American Medical Association established an emergency medicine committee and the American College of Emergency Physicians was founded. However, it wasn’t until 1979 that the American Board of Medical Specialties finally recognized the field as a specialty. Soon thereafter, in 1981, the University of Vermont’s College of Medicine established a Division of Emergency Medicine within the Department of Surgery, with Professor of Surgery Emerita Ruth Uphold, M.D. – the first board-certified emergency medicine physician in Vermont – serving as its inaugural chief.

Over the decades since its founding, UVM's Division of Emergency Medicine saw many milestones, ushered in by Dr. Uphold and the chiefs who followed her: verification as a Level One Trauma Center; telemedicine utilization; early electronic health record adoption; required emergency medicine curriculum for medical students; a robust research program; use of point-of-care-ultrasound; implementation of a global health program; and more recently, a hard-earned and long-awaited accredited residency program. But the most important milestone of all was the official establishment of the new Department of Emergency Medicine on July 1, 2022, with Ramsey Herrington, M.D., the most-recent division chief, serving as the department's inaugural chair.

Stephen Leffler, M.D., president and COO of the UVM Medical Center and a former chief of emergency medicine, says, “Over the 29 years I have been at UVM Medical Center, there has been tremendous growth of our Emergency Department. When I started in 1993, we saw about 30,000 patients a year and had six attendings [physicians]. Now more than 50 providers care for more than 60,000 patients a year. We have specialists in ultrasound, pediatric emergency medicine, EMS, critical care and global heath. This greatly improves the care and expertise the patients in our region receive through the UVMMC ED.”

Read the full article about UVM’s Emergency Department.

Pictured above: The UVM Medical Center Emergency Department. (Photo courtesy of UVM Health Network Communications & Engagement Strategies) 

Dartmouth, UVM & VTAAC Launch Public Education Program Promoting Early Detection of Lung Cancer

Unlike breast, prostate, and colon cancer screenings, which have long been routine procedures, lung cancer screening for asymptomatic patients is relatively new. And it was only in 2013 that lung cancer screening for at-risk patients became a standard recommendation, after research showed it saved lives, but it is still much less utilized than other cancer screening.

The discrepancy comes at a high price. Absent a regular screening protocol, lung cancer is often detected late, after it has spread, and is the number one cause of cancer death in Vermont and the country. Lung cancer kills more Vermonters, and more Americans, than breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers combined, yet only 14.5 percent of at-risk Vermonters are screened for the disease.

A new community education program, spearheaded by the Dartmouth Cancer Center and the University of Vermont Cancer Center, in partnership with Vermont’s state cancer coalition - Vermonters Taking Action Against Cancer (VTAAC) - aims to make lung cancer screening for eligible patients. Those include individuals over 50 who have smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 or more years, including those who quit no more than 15 years ago—much more prevalent in Vermont. The project is funded by the National Cancer Institute.

Read the full article about this new lung cancer screening program.

Pictured above: A computed tomography or CT scan machine, which offers quick, non-invasive, low-dose radiation imaging for lung cancer and other screenings. (Photo: Liz West)

Ehret Invested as Inaugural Asfaw Yemiru Green and Gold Professor in Global Health

Associate Professor of Pediatrics and neonatologist Danielle Ehret, M.D., M.P.H., was invested as the inaugural Asfaw Yemiru Green and Gold Professor in Global Health in a formal ceremony held at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine on July 28.

This endowed professorship was established by the Vermont Oxford Network (VON) in honor of Asfaw Yemiru, who spent his lifetime serving those in need by educating, providing social support, opportunity and inspiration to over 120,000 children and families at the Asra Hawariat School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which he founded. VON is a nonprofit, collaborative association of over 1,200 neonatal intensive care units in 38 countries whose data-driven quality improvement work has led progress in the quality, safety, and value of care for newborns and their families for more than 35 years.

Dr. Ehret, who joined the UVM faculty in 2015, was introduced to Yemiru by Jeffrey Horbar, M.D., Jerold F. Lucey Professor of Neonatal Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics and chief executive and scientific officer of VON, and became inspired by his life’s work. She serves as director of global health at VON and has conducted extensive research on global health issues relating to high-risk newborns in lower- and middle-income countries around the world, receiving consistent support from extramural funding institutions, including multiple awards from the Gates Foundation.

This professorship will strengthen UVM’s partnership with VON by supporting global health research and service by a Larner College of Medicine pediatrics faculty member who is concurrently engaged in VON’s global health programs.

Read the full article about Dr. Ehret's investiture.

Pictured above (from left to right): Monica Delisa, UVM Foundation President and CEO; Patty Prelock Ph.D., UVM Provost and Senior Vice President; Dr. Horbar; Dr. Ehret; Lewis First, M.D., Chair of Pediatrics; and Larner College of Medicine Dean Richard L. Page, M.D.

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